


i'll be there

by leias_left_hair_bun



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: (someone take echo away from me and give him hugs), Angst, Comfort/Angst, Gen, I'm so sorry, also i say 'major character death', but no one technically dies, i must warn y'all it's mostly pain, this whole thing is basically me projecting my own feelings on fictional characters, which means inflicting pain on them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:00:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26398294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leias_left_hair_bun/pseuds/leias_left_hair_bun
Summary: Echo is afraid to die alone. Luckily, his brothers care too much about him to let that happen.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	i'll be there

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  


#### The Citadel, 20 BBY

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  


_Don’t leave me._

It was as close to a prayer as Echo had ever gotten. He knew it was futile; he hadn’t seen anything to make him think that whatever force it was that controlled the universe cared about clones. But he _hurt_ and he was afraid - gut-wrenchingly afraid - and his tears were more from that than the smoke filling his lungs. His brothers were walking away from him, leaving him alone to burn on the shuttle ramp. 

_I don’t want to die alone. Please._

Strange how time seemed to slow down, each moment dragging by longer than the last. Shouldn’t he be dead already? The terrible brightness of the blast had wholly blinded him, and it was difficult to pinpoint the location of the pain wreaking havoc on his mind. The simulations had prepared Echo for a lot of things, but being blown to pieces was not one of them. Was this what Hevy had felt? Poor, eager Hevy who never got the chance to serve in a real battle or decorate his armor with bold blue paint. Brave, noble Hevy who never got to see how his sacrifice had inspired his surviving batch mates and given them the strength to go on after the trauma of Rishi. When Captain Rex had offered the two of them the chance to become ARC troopers, Fives had said what Echo was thinking: 

“It’s what Hevy always hoped for, sir. I wish he could be here with us, but we’ll do our best to make him proud, wherever he is now.”

Echo sobbed openly at the memory. He would never see Fives again, and the realization hit him forcefully enough to overwhelm his physical pain.

_I never told him I loved him. I never told any of my vode I loved them._

Nearby, another explosion shook the the ground as jagged shards of white-hot metal tore across Echo’s back. The shockwaves jolted his thoughts back to a particular batchmate again.

_I wish I had told Hevy._

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  


#### Rishi Station, 2 years earlier

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  


“What does it mean,” Hevy asked, “that we’re brothers?”

Confused, Echo glanced up from the reg manual he was scanning. If he hadn’t known Fives was on sentry duty, he almost would have thought it was him asking. Such a question coming from Hevy, normally so brash, was…unexpected.

“What kind of question is that?” Cutup retorted, not bothering to so much as open his eyes from where he was sprawled in his seat. “We’re identical, Hevy, or is your sight going on you? Would hate to lose you before we even get to see a firefight.”

A jab like that would usually earn Cutup a smack to the back of the head, so when Hevy didn’t offer him so much as a glare, Echo realized something serious was weighing on his brother’s mind.

“I know we’ve all got the same DNA, _di'kut_ ; that’s not what I meant.”

“It means we watch out for each other, yeah?” Echo volunteered. “We don’t leave each other behind.”

Hevy frowned at that. “No - that’s not what I meant, either. I mean, that’s kind of it, but not really.”

Slightly baffled as to what Hevy was asking, Echo turned back to the reassuring no-nonsense of the reg manual.

“I dunno, then,” Cutup finally said. "Ask the sarge.”

O’Niner, when questioned (Echo was more than a little surprised to see Hevy ask the sergeant about something so personal), responded in the lecturing manner characteristic of him.

“What it means, trooper, is that we’re all cloned from the same DNA and trained in the same environment with the same values. We fight together and we die together. We don’t leave each other behind and we’re loyal to each other, though of course the Republic and her citizens come before any brother…” 

The sergeant continued for a few minutes, Hevy growing more obviously frustrated with every sentence. After O’Niner finished and left Domino to prepare for the night cycle, Echo pulled Hevy aside.

“What’s going on, Hevy? Fives is usually the one asking weird questions."

“I don’t know,” Hevy said, yanking his arm out of Echo’s hold. “I’ve been listening to the Holonet - don’t raise your eyebrows at me, you know we don’t have anything else to do on this blasted moon - and the nat-borns...it’s just that they talk about love a lot. About loving each other. Them, with their parents and siblings and all, they love their families. Their brothers. Do we, ya know - “ he waved his hands as if trying to communicate the word without saying it “ - love each other?" 

Oh. _That’s_ what Hevy had been getting at. Echo hesitated to speak, unsure of what to say. Was he supposed to tell Hevy he loved him? The words should have been simple enough to say, but something like uncertainty was holding him back. That wasn't right, was it? He’d spent every minute of his life alongside Hevy; after what they’d been through together with their final trial, especially, they were close. The whole of Domino was close. But was close the same as love? 

_Have I ever felt love?_

“That’s not really a word we use,” he finally said. “Love.” The word left him with difficulty, sticking in his throat and falling awkwardly off of his tongue. Swallowing thickly, Echo tried again. “I don’t think I know what love is, Hevy, but I care about you. I like having you around...“ He didn’t know how to elaborate on that and decided to switch tracks. “I know I’d miss you if you got killed - wouldn’t want to fight without you in my squad, yeah?”

Hevy hesitated just a little too long. “Yeah, I know.”

_I know?_

“Is that enough, _ner vod_?”

“Yeah.” But Echo could have sworn Hevy looked disappointed as he jerked his shoulders in a poor attempt at nonchalance. "It is.”

_No, it isn’t. I can tell that it isn’t._

That night, Echo turned the conversation over in his mind long after the rest of his squad was asleep. He analyzed and reasoned until he grew too tired to think clearly anymore and only one thought was left.

_I do know what love is. It’s what I feel, and always have felt, for my vode._

Echo fell asleep with a smile on his face. He would tell Hevy the next evening. It might be awkward, but Hevy obviously needed to hear those words - “I love you” - and who was Echo to deny him that?

The next day, commando droids tore their squad apart. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  


#### The Citadel, 20 BBY 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  


_I wish I had told Hevy I loved him._

There was a voice shouting in the distance, harsh and unfamiliar and definitely not a clone's. Echo barely noticed it; it hardly mattered now. He’d be dead soon. No one was coming to look for him, no one cared.

_Did he love me? Did any of my vode love me?_

Echo sobbed again, trying to wrap his arms around himself for comfort and panicking when he found he couldn’t move his right - if it was even still attached to his body.

_I wish someone cared._

“Hey, _di’kut_ , stop doing that. You’ll make yourself worse if you keep trying to move.”

For a single moment, Echo was flooded with joyful relief. The voice was undoubtedly a clone’s. Someone had come back from him. 

The next moment, a fresh wave of adrenaline surged through his body as alarm bells went off in his head. No, the other troopers thought he was dead. They wouldn’t come back for a heap of torn armor and scraps of burnt flesh. He was alone. So whose voice was that? 

“What?” His lungs and throat burned as he strained to push the syllable past the acrid smoke that choked his airway.

“I said, hold still.”

A cool hand was on his cheek then, and oh how Echo wished that he could see. That voice was so wonderfully familiar.

“Do you remember me, Ech’ika?” The speaker paused before he started laughing. “Ok, that’s awful. Never saying that again.”

“Wait - “ Echo coughed, feeling blood spray past his lips as his muscles spasmed horribly. He heard the person beside him click their tongue sympathetically.

“Sorry, _vod'ika_. I know it hurts.”

_I know?_

That confirmed Echo’s suspicions.

“Hevy?"

“You do remember!” Hevy - of course it was Hevy, it had just been so long since Echo had heard his voice, so long since he died - pushed gently at Echo’s shoulder. “Awww, I’m touched. Thought you might have forgotten all about your old mates since you got that skirt.”

“Kama,” Echo corrected him automatically, as if it mattered. “Aren’t you dead?”

“Nice to see you again, too,” Hevy said. “And I am. You will be, too, in a minute, unless that Seppie over there decides to take you home and put you together again. He seems very interested in you.”

Right. The voice in the distance.

“Why are you here?”

Hevy put his hand back on Echo’s cheek. “Well, I know what it’s like to die alone and scared. And in a nice, big explosion. Though yours isn’t half as big as mine was.” He paused. “I died fast. I’ve been watching you since the others left and now I’m thinking I was pretty lucky. You’re in a lot of pain, _vod'ika_.”

Echo didn’t know how to respond to that, so he focused on what was bothering him. “Does that mean you’ve been able to see me this whole time?” Another thought struck him. “Are Droidbait and Cutup here, too?"

“No. They’ve got stuff to do; they’re just waiting for you to hurry it up and die so they can give you a real welcome. And you mean, have I been following your every move since I died? Come on, Echo, you’re not that interesting.” Hevy chuckled. “You know that thing in Mando'a the Alphas taught us? That the dead aren’t really gone, just marching far away? It’s true, and not just the not being gone bit. The fighting doesn’t stop, it’s just - it’s different. You’ll see. And there’s a lot less of it. We’ve got time to do the things we always wanted, plus a lot of things we could never have imagined. Cutup’s got a girlfriend, if you can believe it.”

Now _that_ was funny. Echo started to laugh, coughed instead, and ended up gasping for air as Hevy rubbed soothing circles into his back through what remained of the plastoid plates. The affectionate touch reminded him of something. 

“Hevy? I love you. Sorry I didn’t tell you before you - before the attack. I was going to.”

“Hey.” Hevy pushed on his shoulder again. “Don’t apologize. I love you, too, Echo. And the rest of Domino loves you, and so do a whole lot of _vode_ you haven’t even met.” 

Hevy must have seen the disbelief that flashed across Echo’s face because he paused again before continuing in a more serious tone than Echo had ever remembered him using other than on their penultimate day on Rishi.

“We all watch you sometimes. We watch all our brothers. I don’t completely understand what the Jedi mean about their Force, and I suspect that they don’t have it exactly right, but we’re connected, even with us on the other side. So we watch, and we cheer for you, and we wait for you to come home to us - not too soon, of course. And - and sometimes, Echo, we stand by our brothers and do a little for them. Nudge them towards the right doorway, give them a push out of the way of a blaster bolt. Sit by them when they’re alone and hurting.”

Tears started to well up in Echo’s eyes again and he tried to blink them away. Hevy noticed; of course he did.

“It’s ok, _ner vod_. I saw you ugly crying earlier.”

Echo smiled a bit at that, but he couldn’t laugh. Everything below his neck was starting to feel strangely distant and he realized he was rapidly losing consciousness.

“Will you stay with me?” His voice was so weak now he was afraid Hevy wouldn’t hear him.

A hand grasped his left one. Echo could barely feel it.

“I’ll always be here when you need me."

**Author's Note:**

> A/N this is the first fic i’ve ever finished as well as the first i’ve ever posted, so be kind pls. (: also, feel free to come talk to me on tumblr! my handle is @leias-left-hair-bun


End file.
